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This is a conversation we need more of: standards of beauty. I would generally advice against young black girls reading beauty magazines that almost always seem to glorify western standards of beauty: straight flowing hair, blonde as beautiful “bombshell”, size zero, plucked symmetrical eyebrows, and so forth. These magazines set a particular standard of beauty that excludes black girls and their entire attendant features of blackness. They seem to shout out—together with their inauspicious “how to lose belly fat”, “how to land the perfect man”, “how to make an entrance”—how to be validated, acknowledged, respected, and celebrated through your physical appearance alone. This has reached an indignant zenith through the glorification of talentless celebrities parading that standard of beauty in useless reality shows.

The media is preoccupied and saturated with images of beauty that are non-representative of an entire race. If your ‘beauty’ is outside of that standard, as a…

Olivier Rousteing , creative designer at Balmain returned to the modeling world after last season Rihanna was the one starring in the shots of the ad campaign .

With this new ad campaign shot by Mario Sorrenti , Rousteing is touching a sensitive subject in the fashion world : diversity . And with this diverse cast of models he just did it very well. At the end he is “a black guy in a very important French House,” as the designer himself comments. Supporting this cause just makes sense.

Stylist of the campaign became the very famous Katie Grand while Paul Hanlon took care of the hair, and Lucia Pieroni , makeup.

In American History, today is a very special day. Fifty years ago, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that transformed the treatment of African Americans in schools, buses, housing, libraries, movie theaters, department stores, voting booths, and so much more. This act abolished discrimination of a segregated America that was a LONG TIME coming.

I hope that we can remember its significance and its legacy this 4th of July weekend (and in the voting booths this November)!

It’s no secret that First Lady Michelle Obama is extremely passionate about higher education, and this month she explains more to ESSENCE Editor-in-Chief Vanessa K. Bush.

A major ingredient in the recipe for success has to do with nurturing resilience in our children, Michelle explained.

“I know I tell my kids all the time that they shouldn’t shy away from difficult things, because that is the point at which you are really growing. It’s not just about grades or test scores. Today our kids may shy away from applying to college if they think they don’t have the right grade or test score. But the truth is that the kids who succeed and go on to be successful professionals are the ones who know how to work hard,” says Mrs. Obama.

However in order to even get that far, the First Lady explains that children have to see education…